Mar 10 Crowdfunding's kick

Over 300,000 full and part-time jobs have been created by Kickstarter projects, while initiatives launched on the crowdfunding platform have had a $5.3 billion economic impact, according to a University of Pennsylvania study cited by Kickstarter in its recently published public benefit corporation statement. The company adds that, at end-2016, its team was majority women (53%), while 61% of its senior team and half of its executives were also female.

Last year, independent creators launched 57,515 new projects on Kickstarter, with 80% rolled out by first-timers. Twenty percent came back to launch their second, third… or even 75th project. Around the globe, 4.39 million people supported Kickstarter projects.

In 2016, the outfit launched Kickstarter Live, a new streaming tool that enables creators to perform, demo, and communicate in real time. Within the first few months of its rollout, creators using Kickstarter Live have a 74% success rate — more than double the platform average.

Kickstarter reports that 12,098 of the 19,235 projects that were successfully funded in 2016 were in its core cultural categories of art, comics, crafts, dance, film and video, food, journalism, music, photography, publishing and theatre.